FAO has announced the launch of a major new initiative intended to produce more food for a growing world population in an environmentally sustainable way.

FAO’s call for sustainable crop production intensification, more than half a century after the Green Revolution of the 1960s, is contained in a new book, Save and Grow published by FAO’s Plant Production and Protection Division.

Smallholder farmers

The new approach calls for targeting mainly smallholder farmers in developing countries. Helping low-income farm families in developing countries ? some 2.5 billion people ? economize on cost of production and build healthy agro-ecosystems will enable them to maximize yields and invest the savings in their health and education.

Green Revolution technology saved an estimated one billion people from famine and produced more than enough food for a world population that doubled from three to six billion between 1960 and 2000.

New millennium

However, the present paradigm of intensive crop production cannot meet the challenges of the new millennium. In order to grow, agriculture must learn to save.

The Save and Grow approach draws partly on conservation agriculture (CA) techniques which do away with or minimize ploughing and tilling, thus preserving soil structure and health. Plant residues provide cover over fields and cereals cultivation is rotated with soil-enriching legumes.

Precision farming

Other techniques developed by FAO and its partners over the past several years as part of the Save and Grow toolkit include precision irrigation, which delivers more crop for the drop, and “precision placement” of fertilizers, which can double the amount of nutrients absorbed by plants.

Integrated pest management, whose techniques discourage the development of pest populations and minimizes the need for pesticides, is yet another key element.

Such methods help adapt crops to climate change and not only help grow more food but also contribute to reducing crops’ water needs by 30 percent and energy costs by up to 60 percent. In some cases crop yields can be increased six-fold, as shown by trials with maize held recently in southern Africa. Average yields from farms practicing the techniques in 57 low-income countries increased almost 80 percent, according to one review.

Ecosystems approach

The Save and Grow model incorporates an ecosystem approach that draws on nature’s contribution to crop growth ? soil organic matter, water flow regulation, pollination and natural predation of pests. It applies external inputs at the right time and in the right amount ? no more and no less than plants need.

The approach builds on lessons learned from the Green Revolution of the 1960s which focused on raising crop production without much attention to the environment.